Daisies in the Canyon(8)

Thinking of that sent her back to Cooper sitting beside her at the dinner table. When his strong thigh touched hers, fire had shot through her veins. Then when her knee bumped his, it happened all over again. He’d sat there as cool as an icy-cold beer, but her pulse had raced and her gut had twisted up into a knot. What would he be like in bed? She shivered at the mental pictures that popped up in her head.

“Shut up!” she mumbled. “Stop it. There’s a hard year ahead of you, Abby. And this is going to be your home if you decide to stay on for the long haul. Don’t shit where you eat.” She cracked a smile against the yarn of her ski mask. “Talk about awkward.”

A dog barked and she looked to her left. It wagged its tail and took a couple of steps toward her, then ran back to the cemetery gate. She recognized it as one of the three dogs that had met them when they arrived at the house. Surrounded with an old iron fence with lots of ornate scrollwork, the gate groaned when she pushed it open. Another thing on her list was to give the whole fence a fresh coat of paint and to oil the gate hinges.

The dog ambled on toward the back of the cemetery and stopped at the tombstone in front of the fresh mound of dirt. Abby propped a hip on the cold gray granite and pulled another candy from her pocket to dispel the thoughts of the little girl in Afghanistan that came to mind whenever she thought about parenthood. “I’d share, but all I’ve got is hard candy, and I don’t suppose you should be eating that.”

The mutt put its paws on her leg and wagged its tail.

She squatted down and scratched the dog’s ears. “You and I could be friends. What’s your name? I always wanted a pet, but we lived above the doughnut shop, and Mama said that the health department would pitch a fit over anything that had hair and wasn’t human.”

Abby had never been to a private family cemetery before that day. It must be a rural custom or maybe it was just a Malloy custom to bury their dead right there on the ranch. Whatever it was, she did not intend to bury her mother’s ashes in that place. She’d take them back to Galveston and throw them out into the ocean before she put them anywhere near Ezra.

She stood back up and started to leave, when she glanced back over her shoulder at the tombstone. Ezra Malloy, born November 5, 1933. The death date had yet to be added, but it would say January 1.

Start off the New Year with a death, end with a birth. She remembered the old wives’ tale Granny Spencer had related. She hadn’t really been her granny, but she’d always been thankful that Haley had shared her family with Abby. They’d spent so much time either at the doughnut shop, in the apartment above it, on the beach, or out at the farm where Haley lived that most folks thought they were sisters or cousins at least. It had been Haley who’d insisted that she go to Ezra’s funeral and that she make the trip to the canyon even if it was just to meet her siblings.

She cocked her head to one side and frowned, studying the dates until finally it hit her. “Holy shit, Mama! He was more than fifty years old when I was born. You were only thirty-two that year. What in the hell were you thinking? Was he good-looking back then or did he have some kind of charisma when he was young? All I saw was an old, withered-up guy wearing overalls.”

“You think you’ll get any answers by staring at that chunk of rock?” The deep Texas drawl startled her so bad that she automatically reached for the pistol strapped to her leg, but it wasn’t there. Heart thumping in her chest and pulse racing, she spun around to come face-to-face with Cooper. Only he wasn’t a sheriff anymore. He was a full-fledged cowboy, in a mustard-colored work coat, a black cowboy hat shading his brown eyes, scuffed-up work boots, and a plaid shirt showing beneath his coat.

Her eyes met his and the same feeling she’d gotten at the dinner table came rushing back. If all the sparks flittering around inside her were set loose, the bare trees surrounding the cemetery would go up in flames.

“I’m not so sure I’m even interested in answers. What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Hiram, the guy who owns the funeral home, left one of the tent poles. I told him I’d pick it up and bring it into town tomorrow. What are you doing here? Is that butterscotch I smell?” He took a couple of steps closer to her.

She crammed her hands deeper into her pockets to keep from reaching across the short distance separating them and brushing away that little bit of white sleet sticking to his facial hair.

“I’m making a mental list of everything I want to fix or change if this place is mine and yes, it’s butterscotch. Do you want one?” She held out her hand with one in it.

“No, thank you. I’m plenty full from dinner. Where are your two sisters?”

“I wouldn’t know where they are. Probably unpacking or filing their fingernails,” she answered.

“Sounds like you don’t like them too much.”

She removed her ski mask and with her fingertips combed blonde hair full of static back away from her face. “Don’t know if I like them or not. We are all strangers who will share quarters until one by one we get tired of this shit and leave. I don’t see either of them lasting a month.”

“That youngest one seems pretty determined.”

Her right shoulder popped up slightly. “Right now, she does. But I hear that ranchin’ is hard business.”

He bent from the waist and petted the dog. “I see you’ve made one friend.”